


The Demolition Woman

by notfreyja, Straight_Outta_Hobbiton



Series: Meteors Fright The Fixed Stars [4]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Next Generation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Teenage Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-06-16 23:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15448053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notfreyja/pseuds/notfreyja, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straight_Outta_Hobbiton/pseuds/Straight_Outta_Hobbiton
Summary: After the whole fiasco of a rescue mission in the Romulan Nuetral Zone, Demora Sulu is grounded. Like, really grounded. Possibly the most grounded that anyone has ever been in the history of the world. And she probably deserves it. The problem is, she was never a person meant to keep her feet on the ground.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the promised next installment to this series (which is itself a sequel to the [Doubt The Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/series/515326) series. As this won't make one lick of sense on it's own, we highly recommend starting from the beginning.
> 
> Follow [not-freyja](https://not-freyja.tumblr.com) and [straight-outta-hobbiton](https://straight-outta-hobbiton.tumblr.com) on Tumblr for updates on this series and our other works.

Ben Sulu hasn’t heard his daughter’s voice in two months.

 

It’s been three months since she was deposited by the  _ Enterprise, _ along with the Pike twins on Earth. Since his husband and him spent the entire four hours of free time that Hikaru had deciding how to ground their daughter.

 

The verdict was a little harsh. No comm, no PADD, no extracurriculars. Just school and home. Indefinitely. But to be fair, the punishment did kind of fit the crime. Demora  _ did _ run away from home and into deep space with no warning. She _ did  _ spend several days on the  _ Shu Fu,  _ a ship that they had no way to track or locate. And most damning, she _ did  _ go into the Romulan Neutral Zone, nearly started an interstellar incident, and through her actions the  _ Enterprise _ and her entire family were pulled directly into danger and onto the cusp of starting a war.

 

Yeah, she deserves to be grounded. Severely.

 

But Ben’s living in a house with no company but the ghost of a person that Demora has become. She hasn’t spoken to him since her last angry plea for freedom, two months ago.

 

She hasn’t said a single word. 

 

And yeah, he does want her to be a little miserable. She deserves to be. But this is getting to be a little much.

 

At first he thought the silent treatment was some sort of backhanded way of punishing him for grounding her. But as time goes on he starts to worry that it might be something deeper, more sinister.

 

And then he gets a call from her school. Apparently, Demore has been cutting a lot of classes. Like a lot.

 

And for the first time in years, Ben goes and looks up her grades through the school’s parent access system. He hasn’t had to look in years. Her grades have always been fine. More than fine. He has a little genius child.

 

But now they’re… she’s barely passing. Not doing her homework, cutting classes, not saying a fucking word. This all adds up to something bad.

 

Ben doesn’t know what to do.

 

When Demora gets home from school that day, he’s waiting for her in the foyer.

 

“Hey sweetie, how was your day?”   
  


Nothing.

 

“I want to talk to you about something.”

 

She doesn’t even look at him. Just toes off her shoes and drops her bag by the door.

 

“Your school called. You’re cutting class?”

 

Demora walks right past him.

 

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

 

That makes her stop, one foot on the bottom step.

 

He waits, almost holding his breath.

 

“What are you going to do?” She asks him, voice utterly devoid of any emotion. “Ground me  _ more _ ?”

 

And then she’s up the stairs and Ben is trying to work through the fact that he finally gets his daughter to speak only for her to verbally slap him in the face.

 

The worst part is, she’s not wrong. He has nothing to hold over her head.

 

He needs to talk to Hikaru.

  
  


*.*

  
  


“I don’t know what to do, honey.” He tells his husband over video call. “Her grades are slipping, she’s cutting class. I’ve gotten one sentence out of her in the past two months.”

 

“What do you mean, she’s cutting class? Where is she going?”

 

“I have no idea, she won’t  _ talk to me _ !” Ben nearly yells, then takes a calming breath. “I think we need to unground her.”

 

Hikaru laughs. “No. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”

 

“Then what do you want me to do?”

 

“I don’t know. But you can’t reward her for cutting class, Ben.”

 

“Fine. I’ll figure something out.”

 

Ben hangs up. He doesn’t want to talk to Hikaru anymore right now. The urge to scream at him is far too strong for them to have a constructive conversation. He’ll apologize later.

 

In the meantime, he needs to talk to someone that knows what to do with a moody teenager who might be have some sort of depressive spiral.

 

Luckily for him, he knows two very hard-to-predict teenagers and their parents quite well.

 

He’ll go see Pike tomorrow, while Demora is at school. Or rather, when Demora is pretending to be at school.

  
  


*.*

  
  


“Hey Ben!” Chris opens the door with a smile. “I was beginning to think you were ignoring us.”

 

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to stay away. I’ve just been…” He absently scratches the back of his head at a loss for words.

 

“Don’t worry about it.” Chris waves it off. “Come on in. But I have to warn you, my wife is home.”

 

Chris wheels backwards away from the door, then pivots and heads toward the living room. “One, Ben is here!”

 

Ben follows him inside, shutting the door behind himself with a smile. He has missed the Pike’s.

 

“Hello Benjamin,” Number One greets him from the corner of the couch she is curled up in, an honest paper book in her lap. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

 

“Does he need a reason to come over, woman?” Chris counters with an eye roll.

 

“No,” she answers with a slight smirk. “But he has one.”

 

“It’s Demora.” Ben knows that with Number One, it is better to get straight to the point. “I’m worried about her.”

 

“WHat’s wrong with Demora?” Pike asks, the picture of concern. “Is she alright?”

 

“I honestly don’t know.” Ben collapses heavily onto the other side of the couch. “Ever since everything with Sarek, she hasn’t been herself.”

 

Number One levels him with a searching glare. Pike frowns, then asks, “How so?”

 

Before Ben even has the chance to answer, One cuts him off. “We can’t help you,” she says with force.

 

Both men stare at her in shock.

 

She rolls her eyes, then continues. “We are not the right people to help you, rather. But do not worry, I know who is.”

 

Ben frowns in confusion at the same time that realization dawns across Christopher’s face.

 

“Call James,” Number One orders. “He will know what to do.”

 

“Really? Jim?” Ben laughs. “You want me to get parenting advice from  _ Jim _ ?”

 

“Not parenting advice. God no,” Chris answers. “We think that  _ Demora  _ should hear what Jim has to say.”

 

“He has personal experience with adolescents and children in emotional distress,” Number One elaborates. “It would be in your daughter’s best interest to put the two of them in contact.”

 

Ben looks to Pike for help, who just shrugs. “She’s right.”

 

“Okay,” Ben sighs. “I’ll call Jim.”

 

After all, it’s not like the man could make the situation much worse.


	2. Chapter 2

Ben Sulu:

Hey Jim, would it be okay if I had Demora call you?

 

Jim:

Demora can always call me.

Why

Is something wrong?

 

Ben Sulu:

I think something’s up with her.

I mean, something is wrong.

 

Jim:

How wrong are we talking?

 

Ben Sulu:

I think that everything that went down in the Neutral Zone is getting to her.

She won’t talk to me.

 

Jim:

Shit, okay.

Then no, she can’t call me. This is not the kind of conversation that she wants to have over the phone.

 

Ben Sulu:

Then what do I do?

 

Jim:

We’re actually supposed to get a really small refit done in like a month?

I can try and get it moved from starbase 12 to 1.

Then I can come planetside for a few hours.

Take her to lunch or something.

 

Ben Sulu:

That would be amazing.

Thank you so much, Jim.

 

Jim:

Don’t thank me yet.

Actually, do thank me.

Now I have to do extra paperwork.

_ Paperwork,  _ Ben!

 

Ben Sulu:

Thank you for your service, Captain.

  
  


*.*

  
  


Jim is not marriage counselor. Really, he’s not. And that’s honestly for the best, considering he’s been married since the age of four and how the only thing that has held his marriage together on multiple occasions has been the telepathy.

 

It’s kind of hard to have miscommunication with someone who is  _ literally _ in your head. Yet him and Spock still manage it sometimes. It’s kind of impressive when he stops and thinks about it. Like, damn.

 

He’s sidetracked. The point here, is that no one, under any circumstance, should come to Jim for relationship advice. He thought the universe at large was aware of this.

 

Sulu, as it turns out, is not.

 

He finds Jim on the observation deck, curled into the corner of where the glass meets the floor.

 

“It’s one in the morning, Jim. Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

 

He laughs. “I could ask you the same question.” 

 

“Yeah, but I asked you first,” Sulu counters, sliding down the wall to sit next to him.

 

“Couldn’t sleep, that’s all. Didn’t want to wake Spock.” He flashes a smile. “Figured I’d come and enjoy the view. You?”

 

“Came up here to sulk, honestly.”

 

Jim’s eyes widen slightly. “Do I want to know?”

 

The sigh that leaves Sulu is one of the heaviest Jim has ever heard. And he grew up antagonizing Pike. “Ben and I are fighting. About Demora.”

 

Abort. Abort, abort, abort. This is not a conversation that is going to end well.

 

Either not noticing Jim’s deer-in-the-headlights look or electing to ignore it, Sulu continues, “It’s just that, she fucked up. Big time. It’s not like all the other times, where she’d run off on those little harmless adventures with the Pikes, or follow your kid of planet for some family drama. This time… she could have  _ died,  _ Jim. They were in the damn _ Zone. _ And it hasn’t even been a semester and Ben already wants to un-ground her. Can you believe that?”

 

“Well, I—”

 

“And she’s cutting classes, did you know that?” Sulu barrels on. “And failing. And won’t say a fucking word to Ben and refuses to talk to me either. And I try to talk to him about it and he gets mad at me, and he hung up on me the other day, he never does that, and I really don’t know what to do here, Jim.”

 

Sulu finally shuts up long enough to get a word in. “I really don’t know.”

 

He frowns. “Well what do you do when you and the Vulcan fight?”

 

“We’ve actually only ever really fought twice. And neither of those situations were handled well. By either of us. I’m really not the person to ask about that.” Please, Sulu, leave it at that.

 

Of course, he doesn’t. “You two fight all the time, man. On the bridge, in the ready room… in the hallway at midnight.”

 

“No, those are not fights!” Jim feels himself bristle slightly. “Those are very opinionated debates.”

 

“Sure they are.”

 

Inspiration strikes. “You know who you should talk to? Uhura. Go talk to Uhura. Her and T’Pring have been doing the long-distance thing for years.”

 

“Shit.” Sulu blinks. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

 

“Because you’re an idiot?” Jim teases with a smile. He’s getting out of this conversation. He can feel it.

 

“I might be.” Hikaru sighs. “I’ll talk to her in the morning. Mind if I just sit here with you?”

 

“Yes, I mind terribly.” Jim lies, shifting to lean against his friend, turning his shoulder into a pillow. “I hate you, go away.”

 

He doesn’t hear so much as feel Sulu laugh at that, a quiet vibration in his chest. And then they just sit there, together, watching the universe go by.

 

Jim really does love Sulu.

 

He just would rather stay out of it. After all, Ben is his friend, too. And he did already promise to talk to Demora.

 

But they can stay here a while, just the two of them. They’re both on Beta shift tomorrow.

  
  


*.*

  
  


When Jim wakes up the next morning, it is in an empty bed. Which is for the best because it really wouldn’t do for the XO to not show up for his on duty shift. He sends out a soft question mark of a feeling across the bond, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

 

_ All is well,  _ he gets in reply.

 

Awesome. Which means Jim can go back to sleep for… oh shit, what time is it? He rolls over, plucks his comm off of the side table, and glances at the time.

 

It’s only 0900. Fantastic.

 

More sleep for him.

 

But he does have an unread message.

 

Uhura:

I’m going to kill you, Jim.

 

He can’t help but laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the chapter everybody! Hobbit and Freyja are off to get wizard wasted at the Harry Potter Philly pub crawl, and assuming all the day drinking doesn't kill us, the next chapter will be up on Monday!


	3. Chapter 3

It takes a little bit of pouting, but the fact that the  _ Enterprise’s  _ official handler is Pike makes it almost too easy to get their scheduled maintenance moved as close to Earth as possible.

 

The bad news is, the closer a ship is to a Federation planet, the stricter the people in charge actually are when it comes to things like regulation. Especially about things like unapproved engine modifications (Scotty) and contraband beverages (Jim) and plants that really don’t belong in the botany labs (Sulu).

 

And ever since Gaila practically moved into Scotty’s room, the still that lived in his and Bones’ bathroom had to be moved. To a jefferies tube near the engine room that Jim totally didn’t know it was in.

 

Anyway, the forty eight hours that it took them to pull into port was a mad scramble to get their lady up to code. It ends up being a very close call. But they dock with textbook precision, and then it’s over. Done.

 

Everybody off, and don’t show your faces around here for the next three days.

 

Of course, that’s a lot easier said than done. A ship this large takes a little while to empty out. And Jim loves that his job is really nothing more than a troop leader for armed boy scouts, really he does. And yet if he has to help one more ensign find something in the next twenty minutes he is going to scream.

 

But Jim is a helpful person by nature, so he ends up dealing with all sorts of petty problems for the next two hours while Spock gets to have all the real fun helping to shut down the biology labs.

 

At least he does manage to warn Ben and T’Pring both that the family is inbound before beam down actually begins.

  
  


*.*

  
  


“Hey, Sulu, wait!”

 

Hikaru freezes ten feet await from the transporter room. “Did I forget something, Captain?”

 

Jim rolls his eyes, catching up to him. “Yeah, me. I’m heading to your place, was hoping I could walk with you.”

 

There’s a question in Sulu’s eyes, but he keeps it to himself. “Yeah, I’ll wait. But I’m beaming down without you, Jim.”

 

He frowns. “Why?”

 

“Because you might have to be the last one off, but I don’t need to be. And I would  _ really  _ like to get a cup of non-replicated coffee.”

 

Sulu is a genius. “Oh my god, can you—”

 

“Get you a cup? No problem.”

  
  


*.*

  
  


Jim, Sock, Bones, and Scotty are the last people on the ship.

 

“They better not break anything,” Scotty mutters to himself, waiting for the call to beam aboard the first of the construction crew.

 

“Relax,” Jim says with an eye-roll. “You can fix it anyway.”

 

“Still don’t understand why I couldn’t have just taken a shuttle down,” Bones mutters to himself.

 

“That would have been an illogical waste of time and fuel, Doctor.”

 

“You want to know what’s illogical, Spock?” Leonard counters with a tone that says that the Vulcan is going to hear it whether he wants to or not. “Scattering a man’s atoms across the cosmos when there is a perfectly convenient alternative available.”

 

Jim needs to break this up before it turns into a thing. “I’m following Sulu home, I’ll meet you guys at the house later, okay?”

 

All three of them freeze, Scotty’s mouth half open. He was clearly about to jump into their bickering.

 

“But I told Jo we were going to go to the house, Jim.” Bones complains.

 

_ Is everything alright?  _ Spock questions.  _ This is abnormal behavior. _

 

“She can wait a few hours,” Jim bites back at his friend, while thinking back,  _ Ben asked me to have a talk with Demora. This might take a while. _

 

_ Talk? _

 

Scotty starts beaming aboard the first crew, and Bones finally notices the telepathic conversation he’s standing in between and rolls his eyes.

 

_ He thinks she’s traumatized.  _ Jim answers, sending over the ideas of  _ fear,  _ and  _ battle,  _ and  _ can’t sleep, bad dreams, blood, dying, death. _

 

Spock nods curtly, but doesn’t answer.

  
  


*.*

  
  


After the four of them beam down, Jim goes of to find Sulu, Scotty goes to meet up with some friends that he doesn’t live with, leaving Spock and Bones alone on the crowded San Francisco street outside of headquarters.

 

Bones sighs. “Alright, let’s go home.”

 

Spock starts walking in the opposite direction.

 

“Wait, where are you going?”

 

The Vulcan pauses, turning around. “The liquor store, Doctor.”

 

“What? Why?”

 

“We are drinking tonight.”

 

And there’s something in his voice, that tone of voice that he only ever uses when Jim is being difficult, and the combination of Jim being difficult and Spock wanting a drink has implications so heavy it makes Bones curse. “Fuck, okay. Yeah, let’s go.” 

  
  


*.*

  
  


“So why  _ are  _ you following me home?” Sulu asks about five minutes into their fifteen minute walk.

 

“What do you not want me around? Sulu I’m hurt.” Jim teases, trying to deflect.

 

“You know what I mean, asshole.”

 

Well that didn’t work. Jim sighs. “Ben asked me to talk to Demora.”

 

“About what?”

 

“I don’t know.” Jim certainly isn’t going to be the one to tell Sulu that hi daughter is a little murderer. “I didn’t ask.”

 

That doesn’t settle the issue, apparently. “But what makes Ben think she’ll talk to you, she hasn’t been talking to either of us and we’re her  _ parents. _ ”

 

“Exactly.” Jim sees a window. “You’re her parents, and she’s a teenage girl. Maybe Ben thinks that she’s more likely to open up to me. After all, I am just the fun uncle.”

 

Sulu laughs. “You are not the fun uncle, Jim.”

 

“I am too!”

 

“You keep on thinking that, man.”

 

Jim punches him on the arm just a little too hard, which makes them both burst into laughter just as they round the corner onto Sulu’s street. The man pauses, frowning. “Just make sure she’s alright, okay?”

 

“I will, don’t worry.” Jim squeezes Sulu’s shoulder. “Let’s get you home. Ben is probably missing you something awful.”

 

And all the fighting that the two of them have been doing aside, he really has been, if the kiss Sulu gets when they walk in the house is anything to go by. They pull apart, Ben blushing as he processes the fact that Jim is there.

 

“Hey, Jim. You’re here for Demora?”

 

“Yeah, I figured I take her to lunch, give you guys some alone time.” He answers with a wink.

 

“Oh fuck you, man.” Sulu laughs.

 

“Not going to lie, I’ve thought about it.” Jim waggles his eyebrows playfully. “But no thank you.”

 

He darts up the stairs before one of his friends can punch him, yelling. “Demora, I’m here to bust you out!”

 

“Uncle Jim!” She barrels out of her room with a squeak, launching herself into his arms in the hallway, nearly knocking him over. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Jailbreak.” He grins, and she answers it with a subdued smile. “Come on, we’re going to have so much fun today.”

 

Because in Jim’s personal experience, nothing works better as therapy than good old fashioned senseless fun.


	4. Chapter 4

Demora’s attitude changes the second that they go down the stairs. She becomes an obelisk, a creature of stone. There’s no expression on her face as she wiggles her feet into her sneakers, ignoring Sulu’s attempts to talk to her, and just walks straight out the door.

 

Ben doesn’t even try, just shoots Jim a look of pure desperation.

 

“Don’t worry,” Jim says, trying not to show his concern. Demo has always been an affectionate kid. This is definitely weird. “I’ll figure it out, Sulus.”

 

“When will you bring her home?” Ben asks, defeated.

 

“No idea. A few hours, at least.” He forces a smile. “Wish me luck.” Not allowing them the chance to respond, he follows her outside.

 

“Where are we going?” She asks, still kind of flat.

 

“Right now? My house.”

 

“Why?”

 

He smirks. “We’re going to see a Vulcan about a bike.”

 

The look of complete confusion that she gives him is absolutely priceless.

  
  


*.*

  
  


Jim barrels into the house with a shout. “T’Pring, you bitch, you changed the lock code on the garage!”

 

“It was a long and tedious to code in every time one of the children needed to bring a bicycle inside, and far too long for them to remember themselves.” She replies, voice floating through the house from the kitchen. 

 

“Is anyone else home?” He shouts back, not leaving the doorway.

 

“Not as of yet, no.”

 

Jim makes a show of rolling his eyes at Demora, mouthing ‘Vulcans,’ before yelling back, “Are you going to tell me the garage code or what?”

 

“One seven zero one.” She monotones. “You should be able to remember that, Captain.”

 

“Fuck you,” Jm laughs out as a way of saying goodbye, letting the door slam shut.

 

“Are we not going to see T’Pring?” Demora asks. “Or anyone else?”

 

“Nope.” Jim says, heading back over to the garage, keying in the code with a grin.

 

“Then what are we doing here?”

 

“I told you, picking up a bike.” The door screeches open, revealing the total chaos of the garage. “There she is.”

 

And there she is indeed, the frankly gorgeous bike that Jim is happy to call his own and so sad to leave behind on Earth, in a corner of the crowded space, halfway hidden between two different walls of boxes, just marked ‘rocks.’

 

Oops. His bad.

 

“I’ll dig her out, you find the keys. Check in that cabinet,” he tells Demora, and then quickly acquaints himself with how heavy a box of rocks actually is.

 

She rolls her eyes, but does as he asks.

 

She ends up finding the keys a few moments before he can finally push the bike out of the garage.

 

“Okay,” he says, panting slightly, “Bad news, I only have one helmet. Good news, it should fit you fine.”

 

“Wait, we’re riding that?”

 

_ Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. _ “Yes ma’am.”

 

“Can I drive?”

 

And there’s that little bit of leaps-before-looking that has always been apart of who Demo is as a person. “Absolutely. But let me take us up out of the city first. Crashing on dirt hurts a lot less than crashing on pavement, even if you _ are  _ wearing protective gear.”

 

She smiles, and it’s so wide and bright that Jim knows that no matter how hard the whole situation in the Neutral Zone got to her, she’s going to be okay.

  
  


*.*

  
  


Demora takes to the bike like a fish to water. It takes her less than ten minutes to get the general gist of driving up and down the park trail, and less than an hour until Jim thinks she’s ready to go for a real drive.

 

“Ready to hit the road?” He asks her as she skids to a stop with shocking grace in front of him.

 

“I don’t have a motorcycle license, Uncle Jim.”

 

“So don’t get pulled over.” He tells her, climbing onto the back of the bike and wrapping his arms around her waist. Which is weird. He hasn’t ridden bitch since he taught Peter, and that was out in the New Vulcan dessert nearly five years ago. “And take the turns a little easier, I’d rather not have you knock me off.”

 

“Where to?” she manages to ask through her laughter.

 

“Ice cream?”

 

Her response is the rev of the engine and a jolt as they accelerate.

  
  


*.*

  
  


“I’m going to be sick,” Jim declares to the air at large, starring morosely at what he has come to be convinced is a bottomless cup of ice cream.

 

“Well please don’t do that,” Demo rolls her eyes as she collapses into the grass.

 

They have found themselves laying in the small field of a city park, the bike resting on its kickstand within sight.

 

“How in the hell did you eat that so quickly?” He asks, stretching out on his back next to her.

 

“Teenage metabolism,” she deadpans, and he laughs.

 

They’ve been out for hours now, the summer sun just starting to dip, as the slight breeze starts to take on the cool of the coming night. It’s been fun, but Jim is running out to time to get to the point.

 

Best not to beat around the bush here. “Are you okay? Honestly?”

 

Demora is a smart kid. She doesn't need to ask what he’s talking about. “I don’t know.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

She sighs. “It’s… I’m not upset about what happened. About what I did.” Jim’s starting to worrying about the ramifications of a human child not being upset about actually killing people before she adds, “I mean, they had Uncle Sarek. It wasn’t like I wanted to hurt anybody.”

 

“You didn’t feel like you had a choice,” he finishes for her.

 

“Yeah.” She frowns. “I felt like I had to, you know?”

 

“I do.” God, does Jim understand that feeling. “But it doesn’t make it any easier to live with.”

 

Demora gulps, having fallen silent.

 

“Demora,” Jim says, voice going soft, “telling yourself that you had to, that they deserved it, it doesn’t make this feeling go away.”

 

“Then what does?” And her voice is so broken, Jim can feel it in his chest.

 

“Accepting that it happened, that  _ you did that, _ ” he bites his lip, fighting down his own little friendly box of demons. “And then figuring out for yourself how to live with it.”

 

Her breath hitches, “I didn’t realize killing felt like…  _ that.  _ Like…” she stares at him, at a loss for words.

 

“Like cutting out a piece of yourself?”

 

“Yeah.” There’s a bit of a curious tint to her frown now. “How do you know all this? What I’m feeling?”

 

“Because I was younger than you the first time I had to kill someone, Demo. And I still have nightmares. But it does get easier.”

 

There’s horror in her eyes now. “What happened?” The question is a whisper.

 

Jim tells her. Fuck, does he tell her, and it hurts, and he wants a fucking drink. But it seems to do something because by the time he’s done, they both might be crying but the shadow in Demora’s eyes is a little lighter.

 

And it might just be the idea that she’s not alone in this tar pit of a feeling, but it does seems to help. 

 

The second Jim stops talking she starts. And as she goes on, she cries harder. Jim doesn’t know how but he ends up with his niece sitting in his lao, face buried in his neck and sobbing.

 

They lose track of time that way, holding onto each other and crying and just letting go.

 

It feels like relief.

 

After her sobs stop, Jim squeezes her extra hard before letting go. “Want to drive us home?”

 

“Okay.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

She eases into a stop in front of her house with a sigh. “Thank you for today, Uncle Jim. And the lesson.”

 

“No problem,” he says with a smile, climbing off the bike. “You take care of her, okay?”

 

“What?” She almost falls off the bike, he startled her so much.

 

“The bike, kid. Try not to crash her, okay?”

 

“You mean she’s mine?”

 

And there is so much love and wonder in her eyes that Jim can’t help but smile. “Technically it’s your dad’s. I won it off of him the night we met. And I figure that if I can’t bring it with me in space, a Sulu ought to be the one taking care of it when I’m not planetside.”

 

She squeals and hugs him again, and she’s laughing now through her tears, “Thank you Uncle Jim, thank you, thank you,  _ thank you! _ ”

 

He pushes her off smiling. “Talk to your dads, okay?”

 

She sobers. “But they won’t get it. Not like you do.”

 

“No,” he admits. “But they love you. Don’t take that for granted.”

 

He follows her inside, and both her parents seem to materialize in the foyer. With no warning, Demora bursts into tears again, and throws herself at Ben. He freezes for a beat, startled, before wrapping his arms around his daughter.

 

“Thank you,” he mouths silently at Jim over her shoulder, before leading Demora over to the living room.

 

“What happened?” Sulu asks. “Is she alright.”

 

Jim sighs. “She’s going through some stuff, man. And it’s not my stuff to tell you about.”

 

“Okay.” He frowns, shaking his head. “What can I do?”

 

“Talk to your daughter.” Jim says firmly. “And ease up on the reins a little. She needs things to do, trust me.”

 

Hikaru sighs. “I can do that, yeah.”

 

Jim gives a nervous smile. “And I may have long-term lent her my bike.”

 

Sulu’s eyes go wide. “You mean my bike?”

 

“I mean no such thing,” JIm insists. “I won that fair and square.”

 

“I doubt that.”

  
  


*.*

  
  


Jim leaves the Sulus to it, and walks himself home. He needs a drink after that, or ten.

 

His family is way ahead of him.

 

When he walks in the house, it’s to a wall of noise.

 

“Keptin!” Chekov shouts, handing him a glass of amber liquid. “We are getting drunk and watching movies.”

 

Jim laughs, taking the drink. “Who’s we?”

 

“Everybody.” He rolls his eyes, wandering off.

 

Jim shakes his head, going to find his husband.

 

_ Kitchen,  _ comes the thought, and Jim smiles, altering his course accordingly.

 

He comes up to Spock, leaning into his side. “ _ We’re  _ drinking, huh?”

 

“I deemed it wise.”

 

Yeah, Jim loves his family. “I’m sure Bones was a fan of that.”

 

“Indeed.”

  
  


*.*

  
  


On the last day before the  _ Enterprise  _ ships back out, Demora’s parents sit her down and tell her that she can sign up for extracurriculars again. 

 

Which is awesome, and actually mental breakdown that she may or may not have had aside, she would have tried crying on them sooner if she knew that this would be the result.

 

Her dads tell her she can do three things, and to their surprise, she has an answer ready.

 

“I want free running, flying lessons, and jedi classes.”

 

“No more fencing?” Hikaru asks with a frown. “You love fencing.”

 

She shrugs. “I’ve learned everything that it can teach me.”

 

“Hang on,” Ben interrupts, “Jedi classes?”

 

“Yeah,” she smiles. “They teach you how to duel with a lightsaber. It’s a really pretty fighting style and I want to learn it.”

 

“I don’t see the harm,” Hikaru says. “It’s not like they’re going to give her an actual laser sword.”

 

Demora keeps her mouth shut about the galaxy’s only known laser sword, sitting in the  _ Shu Fu’s  _ cargo bay right where she left it.

 

“And free running?” Ben continues. “You want to learn parkour?”

 

Her only response is a shrug.

 

“Okay.” Hikaru shakes his head. “But flying lessons will take a bit to set up, especially somewhere that will take a sixteen year-old. And you’re going to have to get a license for that bike, too.”

 

“What bike?” Ben asks, eyes wide.

 

Demora grimaces. “Did I not tell you about the bike?”

 

Realization clicks visibly. “I'm going to kill Jim.”

  
  


*.*

  
  


Her grades start going back up, and she stops cutting class.

 

Both of her parents are convinced it’s because having shit to do after school has magically cured her depression, and she’s not about to correct that assumption.

 

The truth is, she finally has social interaction during the daylight hours, which means that she has finally shut down Connor and Tubey from sneaking into her house at night and keeping her up until the crack of dawn.

 

Which they have been doing for months.

 

And it’s not like she didn’t appreciate the company, because she did. But then she was falling asleep in class, and that didn’t look good. So then she started cutting the classes she was doing really well in to nap, and well… that situation spiraled real fast.

 

But now they walk her to parkour after school, and walk her home after jedi lessons, and they hang out a little in the middle. And it’s nice, really, to have her cousins around, even though she’s still technically grounded.

 

And then she isn’t?

 

Which she only finds out when the twins follow her home for dinner and her dad doesn’t say a word.

 

And that is just fantastic.

 

Sure, she still has nightmares sometimes, and she can never look at the color green the same way again, but it’s better. It’s so much better that she is finally starting to see how bad it was really getting. No small wonder that the twins had been bothering her in the middle of the night. She was a mess.

 

But there’s something missing.

 

It’s not until after she turns sixteen and starts working towards her pilot’s license that it clicks.

 

She’s going to be a pilot. And the starships and the people that can fly them are not meant to keep their feet on the ground.

 

Fortunately for Demora, she already knows a girl with a ship.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

Demora lets herself into the Pike’s house Saturday morning.

 

“Good morning, Demora,” Number One intones from the kitchen without even coming out to see who had actually walked into her house. That would be a lot creepier if Demo wasn’t already used to it. “My children are still asleep, feel free to wake them.”

 

Chris Pike catches her at the end of the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. “Morning Demora, please get the monsters out of my house.”

 

She smiles and rolls her eyes, but otherwise ignores him and steps around his chair to go down the hall.

 

She’s got a plan. A plan that will require the cooperation of two Illyrians— which, considering the nature of the plan and the two Illyrians involved, will probably be a production.

 

Pike shakes his head when Demora ignores him, but doesn’t actually mind. Demora is a good kid. Better than his kids, actually. And he tried.

 

“Do not lie, Christopher,” his wife chides as he wheels into the kitchen. “You do not actually want to remove the children from the house.”

 

“No, I kind of do, actually.”.

 

She’s frowning as she hands him his coffee. “I thought we agreed that it was acceptable that they do not pursue any higher learning until they have settled upon a field to study.”

 

“That’s not the problem. If they don’t know what they’re doing, then yeah, it’s fine if they aren’t in college or the Academy.”

 

“Then what, precisely, is the nature of your distress?”

 

“I’d like it if they did  _ something!  _ Get a job, volunteer, do the goddamn dishes!”

 

Number One’s frown deepens. “You may have a point.”

 

“I know I do, woman.”

  
  


*.*

  
  


It actually takes longer to wake the Twins up than to convince them of her plan.

 

“Peter will be the hardest to convince,” Connor warns, stretching further diagonally, and almost pushing his sister off the bed.

 

“If you could refrain from literally kicking me off of my own bed, I would appreciate it,” Tubey says, elbowing him out of her personal pace.

 

Demora rolls her eyes. She’s safely out of the way of this, sitting cross-legged at the foot of Tubey’s bed. “I don’t think Peter will be that hard to talk into it. He must be losing his mind on Vulcan after everything. I know I was losing my mind, and my parent wasn’t the one that was kidnapped.”

 

“That may be the problem,” Connor counters. “Peter has always been a little overly attached to Sarek. This may have made it worse.”

 

“Oh, it most certainly did,” Tubey says with a frown. “But why don’t we worry about the problems within easier reach first. Such as David and Saavik.”

 

“David will do anything that Saavik does,” Connor suggests. “And vise versa.”

 

“So we only have to convince one of them,” Demora finishes. “The question is, which one?”

 

“David.” The twins say in unison.

 

“He is a Kirk, and prone to impulse.” Tubey elaborates.

 

“And will do almost anything for family,” Connor adds.

 

“Okay,” Demora can feel a grin spreading over her face. “So we convince David.”

  
  


*.*

  
  


“I’m sorry, you want to  _ what? _ ”

 

“Hijack Jo’s ship and strong arm her into taking all of us on as her crew,” Demora says again.

 

Honestly, her cousin has been taking this conversation a lot better than she had thought he would. He hasn’t laughed in her face, not yet. Which is a good sign. Then again, he doesn’t seem convinced either.

 

“So this is why you wanted me to come over alone, Demora? So the three of you could try and talk me into this hairbrained scheme?”

 

Connor shrugs. “We figured you would be easier to convince than the Romulan.”

 

David sighs, and finally stops pacing around her living room to stare Demo straight in the eye. “You’re going to do this with or without me, aren’t you?”

 

“It would be safer with you there,” Tubey adds. “And besides, it isn’t permanent. We just want to give Peter a little bit of adventure.”

 

“The kind where no one is actually going to die,” Demora corrects. “It’ll be good for him.”

 

“Okay.” David sighs. “Okay, fine. When do we leave?”

 

“You accept?” Connor’s eyes go wide. He actually can’t believe that it was that easy.

 

“Looks like.” David finally smiles. “It actually does sound like fun, to bootleg a crate of booze or two.”

 

“That’s the spirit!” Demora is full-on grinning now. “I get my pilot’s license in a month, so…”

 

“I have a month to talk Saavik into it.”

 

None of them point out the obvious. It won’t take nearly that long. After all, they talked David around in under five minutes.

  
  


*.*

  
  


With the twins help, it doesn’t take that long to hack into the school’s mainframe and sign he up for her GED test. She would do it properly, without all the sneaking around, but… then her parents would find out before it was too late to do anything about it.

 

And besides, she knows Uncle Jim will be proud of her for at least thinking this far ahead. It’s not like she’s just going to drop out.

 

That would be irresponsible.

  
  


*.*

  
  


Winona Kirk has a nose for trouble.

 

Correction: she has a nose for when other people are trouble— or at least, about to cause it. She doesn’t do much with it, all told. When it came to her kids, she’d always thought it best for them to make their own mistakes and learn independently. Now, though… well, she’s getting soft in her old age, and honestly? Leaving the Pike twins and the little Sulu to their own devices sounds… hazardous. Like,  _ Water Main Incident  _ levels of hazardous.

 

Besides, she’s heard enough about Peter’s impromptu rescue mission to piece together what probably happened. She’s not a moron, after all, and Tubey’s always preferred long-range weapons over blades. The fact that Demora made it through a mission like that and came out with nothing but a burn and some cuts and bruises is… impressive. Surviving something like that at fifteen? Well, she’s not Jimmy, but that kind of spirit can be dangerous if not properly nurtured and carefully guided.

 

Winona figures it’s only a matter of time before Demora and the twins do something drastic, particularly when Jo tells her about the lockdown Demora’s living under over drinks on some dinky little space station at the very edge of Klingon space. She knows it’s going to be big, too— maybe not assume captaincy of a Starfleet ship when you’re not even really supposed to be there big, but pretty damn big.

 

She does something she never would have thought to do when Jim was fifteen and puts in for shore leave, hopping onto a freighter bound for Earth before she’s actually sure her request cleared. 

 

Number One will understand— she knows her kids better than anyone, after all.

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

The little cafe around the corner from the Pikes works just fine for Winona when she wanders in and asks to take the kids out for lunch. It’s quiet, family-owned, with a nice back deck for dining al fresco. They make small talk over Reuben sandwiches and catch up, and Winona sees a glow in Demora’s eyes as she and the twins trade knowing glances between sips of coffee and bites that can’t be anything but the trouble Winona knows is about to bite them all in the ass.

 

“Alright,” she says, leaning back in her seat. “Tell me.”

 

Demora pauses mid-chew.

 

“Tell you what, Aunt Winnie?” she asks, swallowing a mouthful of meat and bread.

 

“What you’re planning,” Winona says. “You and the twins. And don’t you dare try and lie to me— I know bullshit when I hear it.”

 

There’s a pause.

 

“Err…” Demora looks over at Tubey, who shrugs and gestures for her to speak. She looks back at Winona.

 

“We want to get back on the _ Shu Fu,” _ she says. “All of us— well, everyone on Earth. We haven’t talked to Jo, yet, or Peter.”

 

“That would be a problem,” Winona points out. “Considering that the _ Shu Fu  _ is Jo’s ship.”

 

“Technically not,” Connor says. “We looked into it, and she technically never had the title of the ship flipped into her name. According to its registration, it still belongs to Harcourt Mudd. Or— it did.”

 

“Connor put it in Peter’s name yesterday,” Tubey continues. “Since he is the captain.”

 

Winona arches an eyebrow.

 

“Does Peter know he’s the captain?”

 

“I mean, I was calling him that on the ship,” Demora says. “He didn’t seem to mind.”

 

“He was a good captain,” Connor says. “I do not believe I would care to work under another. Not presently, at least.”

 

“Work?” Winona asks. “You’re planning on getting into the smuggling business with Jo? What’s Number One got to say about that?”

 

Tubey shrugs.

 

“Our father is getting irritable with our delaying choosing a profession, so he should be pleased in that respect, at least.”

 

“And Mother doesn’t care what we do, so long as we are happy with our work,” Connor adds. “She technically has not been told yet, but we will inform her of our plans as soon as certain things tasks are completed.”

 

“I’m getting my pilot’s license soon,” Demora says, her smile dimming. “And… my parents don’t know yet, but… well, I’m getting my GED.”

 

“Oh.” Now that’s a surprise. “You haven’t told your parents you’re dropping out of high school. How’s that working out for ya?”

 

“I’ve been rerouting all the messages from school to my comm and forging signatures, mostly,” Demora says miserably. “And have my study materials disguised as music files in case Dad snoops.”

 

Winona snorts, crossing her arms as she tilts the chair back further.

 

“Nice to see my lessons are coming in handy,” she says. “What about you, Two? Three?”

 

There’s a beat of silence.

 

“What do you mean, Aunt Winnie?” Connor asks after a moment.

 

“Well,” Winona says slowly. “Every person on a ship’s got a job. Otherwise they’re just taking up space. Demo’s saying she’s getting her pilot’s license, which is a clear plan to take over as helmsman, and Jo’s pretty much a nurse, which covers basic medical. You said everybody on Earth is in on the plan, which means Saavik and David— and engineer and a weapons specialist with a minor in computer technologies— are on board, probably as a mechanic and a gadget guy, respectively. Now, add on to that a captain with a background in diplomacy and a Vulcan education, it seems like everybody’s got something to do that helps keep the business up and running. So, what are you two going to be doing on the _ Shu Fu  _ that helps the crew?”

 

The twins look at each other.

 

“I am planning on taking up the position as first mate,” Tubey says. “As I did the last time.”

 

“Which is perfectly alright, on a ship with five hundred people trained to do everything.” Winona leans forward. “There’s only seven of you though. So you’re going to need to be more than just that.”

 

“Communications,” Connor says quietly, leaning to look over at his sister. “You handled all the calls made and received during the the mission, and you speak what, six languages now?”

 

“Nine, though I can only read six.” Tubey hums thoughtfully. “Perhaps I ought to brush up— I could make it to ten by the end of the year, if I tried.”

 

“Connor, you plotted the course to the Zone,” Demora says. “And you helped me with that other thing. You could make a decent navigator, depending on how good you are at math.”

 

“I am very good at math.”

 

“Then we have a navigator,” Tubey says, giving her brother a satisfied smile. “A full set.”

 

“That’s good,” Winona says. “Now you just need to figure out how the hell you’re going to convince Peter to leave Sarek’s side to go pirating with you. He’s been acting as his personal assistant since Sarek went back to work.”

 

“... That may be easier than you think, Aunt Winnie,” Tubey says after a moment. “After all, Peter is a mother hen, and if Uncle Sarek is anything like Uncle Spock…”

 

“He’s starting to lose his mind,” Demora finishes. “Kirks can be suffocating— no offense, Aunt Winnie.”

 

Winona holds up he hands.

 

“I don’t share that particular sin,” she says. “I’m only a Kirk by marriage.”

 

“We will call Uncle Sarek after you have passed your tests,” Tubey says. “If we word it correctly, he may be willing to aid us in our quest.”

 

“God, you kids are great,” Winona says, grinning broadly. “Please, make sure one of you films it when you break the news to Chris— I want that footage. He’s going to have an aneurysm when you tell him all this.”

 

There’s another pause.

 

“Perhaps it might be smarter not to tell him in person,” Tubey says after a moment.

 

“We will have to tell mother, of course.”

 

“Of course. But— surely we can call him and tell him the news from orbit.”

 

“Surely.” Connor looks at Winona. “If you like, we can ask mother to film it.”

 

Winona’s grin widens.

 

“Oh, please do.”


	8. Chapter 8

She aces the test. She knows she does.

 

And she’s getting her pilot’s license in a week.

 

So now all that’s left is to get the  _ Shu Fu  _ to Earth.

 

And also maybe break the news to her dad that she’s leaving the planet and may have dropped out of highschool behind his back.

 

That will be a fun little talk.

 

On second thought, that might be a conversation that might go over better when he can’t stop her. Sometimes it really is better to ask forgiveness than permission.

 

Her family has taught her that much.

  
  


*.*

  
  


Jo actually comes around to a trip to Earth really fast. Especially when Demora tells her that she wants the  _ Shu Fu  _ to be the first ship that she leaves the atmosphere at the helm of. McCoys are a sucker for sentiment like that. It’s a real weakness of theirs.

 

How else would Uncle Jim be able to get away with so much crap?

 

It becomes a whole thing, as her family tends to make them, but fortunately for their entire plan, she manages to keep everything from her dads. Which yeah, she’s going to have to deal with the fall-out of this eventually, but they can’t ground her if they can’t catch her, right?

 

She’s going to take that idea and run with it. As far as she can. And a spaceship is going to take her pretty damn far.

  
  


*.*

  
  


“Demo!” The cargo bay door slams down hard, Saavik wincing at the idea of the state those pressure locks must be in as Jo barrels out without a thought. She ignores the rest of her cousins and scoops Demora up into a crushing hug. “I can’t believe you got your real pilot’s license before I did.”

 

“What’s so hard to believe?” Tubey sasses as she walks past her and straight onto the  _ Shu fu _ .

 

“Yeah, you’ve never done anything the legal way, cousin,” Connor adds, following his sister.

 

Jo’s eyes go wide. “Why are the Pikes getting on my ship?”

 

Demora flashes her best innocent smile. “They wanted to come see me fly, Jo.”

 

“No one’s going to fly anything if they fucking touch something!” Joanna mutters rather loudly, turning on her heels and stalking after the twins. “Tubey, if you so much as  _ look _ at the engine, I’ll skin you alive!”

 

The bad news here is that Jo is already angry. And the events that they have planned for her today are unlikely to improve her mood at all. The good news? Her abject terror at the idea of the Pike twins being unsupervised aboard her beloved ship is enough to blind her to the fact that every single one of them is carrying a bag that’s way too large for a day trip. Well, almost all of them. Saavik has both of the twins’ bags strapped across her back.

 

Everything after that happens kind of fast.

 

While Jo is literally chasing Connor and Tubey up to the bridge, Demora, David and Saavik store all their bags in various compartments in the cargo hold. Jo’s furry blindness may be effective, but it is short-lived, and they all want to make it into warp before she wises up.

  
  


*.*

  
  


The chaos of getting everyone settled down and buckled up on the bridge takes almost an hour. Every single time Demora thinks it’s time to start the engines, Tubey and Jo start yelling at each other. Or Saavik remembers that she needed to run down to the engines and check on something before take off.

 

The last near miss, David literally had to go to the bathroom.

 

It’s just whe Demora is reconsidering the wisdom of trying to live and work in deep space with these people that everyone finally sits down and shuts up.

 

“Alright, kids.” Jo sighs from the Captain’s chair (Peter’s chair), a bit of fondness creeping back into her usual grumble. “Ready for Demora to take us out?”

 

Connor turns his head to grin at Demora, and wiggles his hands in the air over the navigation console. “Where to?”

 

Demora grins. “How about a nice little drive around the block?” She asks, eyes glinting.

 

“Plotting a course to Sedna—”

 

“And back.” Jo barks.

 

“... And  _ back, _ ” he agrees, rolling his eyes.

 

Demora starts up the  _ Shu fu _ , smiling like an idiot. Systems are primed, locks are pressurized (hopefully), and she pulls a lever and they ease off the ground. And then it’s time, it’s  _ happening, _ and it’s too late to turn back.

 

The ship rockets toward the heavens, but she has the angle right, it isn’t rough, it’s a smooth glide up through the sky. The sky that fades to nothing but a black void and it’s not until they’ve been out of atmo for a solid minute that it hits her: Demora just actually took a ship through an entire exit maneuver.

 

“All systems at normal,” Saavik informs them, eyes fixed on the engine readouts tucked into a little screen in the corner.

 

“Internal pressure within optimal range,” David answers.

 

“And still perfectly on course,” adds Connor as if order to, as if this was normal and routine.

 

“Also,” Tubey chirps from where she had buckled herself in in front of the Communications system, “I just want it on the record that I had no idea that this ship was  _ capable  _ of going through atmo without threatening to shake apart.”

 

“I’m not that bad of a pilot!” Jo protests.

 

“Are you sure about that?” David teases, grinning.

 

And then they’re into it, bickering and yelling. And no one is even really mad, they’re just fighting to fight, the way that their family does, but this time it’s fighting with a purpose. Because Jo gets a little tunnel vision when she’s yelling at someone.

 

So she doesn’t notice Connor plot a new course, or Demora laying it in.

 

She doesn’t even notice Saavik get up and slip down to the engines.

 

It’s not until the ship punches warp 4 with so much whiplash it hurts that Jo is even aware that her family is actively conspiring against her.

 

“What the fuck did you do?” She yells, playful argument forgotten as the cabin stabilizes enough to let her jump to her feet. “And don’t bullshit me, assholes.”

 

And the cat is officially out of the bag.

 

“We’re going to go pick up Peter.” David blurts out before anyone has a chance to say anything else. He’s always been such a terrible liar.

 

Jo freezes, and then turns a carefully controlled full circle in place, taking them all in.

 

“You’ve hijacked my ship,” she whispers. “You little gremlins are stealing my ship. _ Again.” _

 

“Technically, Jo, it it Peter’s ship,” Saavik says as she walks back onto the bridge.

 

McCoy’s eyes go cold. “What does that mean?”

 

Tubey smiles. “You really should have transferred the title to your name years ago, Jo. It was almost too easy to flip the registration away from Harry Mudd and into Peter’s name.”

 

There’s a moment of silence. Complete and utter silence, the kind that you can only get out in the black.

 

Until Jo speaks, voice deadly serious.

 

“I’m going to kill you.”

 

“It was Demora’s idea.”

 

They can practically see the steam coming out of her ears.

 

“I’m going to kill  _ all _ of you.”

 

And David, the bastard, just laughs.

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

The thing about having a super important interplanetary Ambassador for a parent, is that Peter literally never knows when people are going to show up at his house. Well, that’s not true. Sarek does always see fit to warn him of impending visitors.

 

It’s just that it isn’t unusual for that warning to come barely ahead of the guests themselves.

 

So Peter doesn’t think anything of it when his Uncle excuses himself from breakfast in order to take a call. Nor does he find it odd when he is informed that there will be guests arriving later that day, and is asked to deal with the mess he had made of the kitchen in the pursuit of science.

 

In fact, the only thing of any note that entire morning is how Sarek decides to go to the market when he had just told Peter that  _ important people are on their way. _

 

Then again, Sarek probably has a better idea of their arrival time than he let on. It would be nice if he ever told Peter all of the information that was relevant to him, but going from what he knows of Spock’s childhood, that is just wishful thinking.

 

But when Peter sees the  _ Shu Fu  _ touch down at the landing pad about fifty yards from the house (the one that Sarek had seen fit to have constructed after certain human children had gotten lost at the docks) it all makes sense.

 

The important people are not here on official business, they are family, and the visit is a surprise for Sarek’s emotional human ward. And his godfather had no doubt gone out to get food that said human (and Illyrian and Romulan) family would like to eat. Peter is almost touched.

 

He darts out the front door with a smile, staying a careful distance away as the cargo bay doors  _ clunk _ down with a dull thud onto the sand.

 

“You ought to get that fixed,” he yells as a way of greeting as his family stumbles out blinking into the beating New Vulcan sun.

 

“No, I don’t.” Jo snips. “David broke it, and it’s not my ship.”

 

Everyone around her laughs at that. Well, everyone but Saavik. She just smiles.

 

“What do you mean, it’s not your ship?”

 

No one answers him. Rather Demora darts forward and pulls him into a bear hugged, squealing, “Peter, I flew us the whole way here, and I have my license and everything isn’t that fantastic?”

 

“That…” he wheezes in a breath. Demo is deceptively strong. “That is indeed ‘fantastic.’”

 

“Go get his bags,” Tubey orders drolly, and much to the shock of literally only Peter, Connor does indeed start strolling over to the house.

 

“We’re going to have so much fun, Pete.” David’s grinning, a slightly manic tint to it.

 

“It will be pleasant to have a live engine to play with,” Saavik adds as if that clarifies things.

 

“I’m sorry.” Jo rolls her eyes. “I would say that I tried to stop them, but it was literally out of my hands this time.” She shooting Demora a death glare by the time she finishes talking. 

 

And now Connor is walking out of the house, heading back towards them, and those  _ are  _ Peter’s bags, and they look full, but why in the universe would his bags already be packed?

 

Then it clicks.

 

“I’m not getting on that fucking ship.”

 

They all freeze, staring at him. Weirdly enough, it’s Jo that answers first. “You know, I’ve found these things go a lot smoother when you don’t fight them, Peter.”

 

“Resistance is futile,” Demora agrees, failing to keep a straight face.

 

“But, I—” he frowns, searching for an escape. “I can’t leave Sarek.”

 

“Who do you think packed your bags, man?” David asks him, smirking.

 

Peter’s eyes go comically wide. “Was  _ everyone _ in on this?”

 

“Not everyone. Jo was kidnapped.”

 

“Not just kidnapped.” She growls back at Tubey. “I had my damn ship stolen from me.”

 

“It was never your ship, Jo.” Saavik has a beautiful eye roll. “Now it’s just Peter’s-ship-that-you-live-in, as opposed to Harry-Mudd’s-ship-that-you-live-in. Which I think is a far preferable situation.”

 

What little part of Peter’s psyche that isn’t on the verge of hysterics runs for the hills. 

 

No doubt seeing the abject shock on his face, Tubey takes pity and elaborates. “I had the title of the  _ Shu fu  _ transferred to you, Peter. It was only logical that, legally, she should belong to her Captain.”

 

“I’m… I’m not the Captain,” he croaks out, head spinning.

 

Demora shakes her head. “Yeah you are, Pete. Who are you kidding?”

 

The logical, rational part of Peter, the part that Sarek raised, wants to turn around, run into the house, and lock the door. Because his cousin’s are definitely not above dragging him onto the  _ Shu fu  _ kicking and screaming.

 

But the irrational part of him, the part of him that gives him his last name, the part that looks up at the stars every night and  _ aches _ , well…

 

That crazy, human, Kirkish piece of him looks up at the rust bucket known as the  _ Shu fu _ and thinks:  _ I’ve been waiting for you. _

 

And he hasn’t made a decision, he really hasn’t, but there must be something written in his expression because Demora cheers, and grabs him by the arm, and the next thing Peter knows there he is, boarding Jo’s ship.

 

No.

 

Boarding  _ his  _ ship.

 

“This is not a permanent decision.” He insists as the bay door groans shut behind them. “I am agreeing to a trial run.”

 

“Sure,” Connor agrees as he appears from the hallway leading to quarters, probably having just deposited Peter’s things in his room.

 

“I am serious,” he presses as they make their way up to the bridge.

 

“Uh-huh,” soothes Demora as she slides into the pilot’s seat, Connor  dropping into the navigation chair beside her.

 

“We don’t even know where we’re going!” Peter protests as his body lowers itself into the Captain’s chair without his permission.

 

“Actually…” Jo looks like it hurts her to speak. “I  _ do _ have a job lined up.”

 

“Sarek!” He’s grasping at straws now, and he knows it. “Sarek will worry about me.”

 

Tubey sighs as she boots up the communications array. “And you can call him whenever you want to, Captain.”

 

He purses his lips, before turning to face David. Sweet, innocent David, who might be the last rational person left on this ship. “This is illegal. I guarantee you that whatever Jo has lined up is illegal.”

 

His cousin shrugs, sliding into a chair and pulling up weather data for the launch as though this were routine. “So was going into the Neutral Zone. And blowing up a Romulan ship. Just saying. Also hacking—”

 

“Okay!” Peter cuts him off before he has the chance to say anything else. “Okay.”

 

The fact that this is reality is starting to set in. His legs take him to the captain’s chair almost instinctively, his knees bending or buckling (Peter’s not really sure which) until he’s settled on the cushioned seat. He can’t tell if the feeling in his chest is excitement or nausea— possibly it’s both. Thinking too hard about that at the moment might not be wise. So for the first time in a long time, Peter doesn’t think. He just does what feels right.

 

“Demora,” he says quietly, voice calm at last. The bridge goes still. “Take us up.”

 

The ship groans, then rises, and everyone is calm, watching screens and hitting buttons.

 

He’s doing this, he’s really doing this. He didn’t even really fight that hard.

 

His cousins are crazy, pulling him into this half-assed plan, giving him the captaincy of a smuggling ship. It shouldn’t be happening, but somehow, it is. Somehow, he legally owns a ship that’s regularly used to smuggle booze and weapons and God only knows what else. Somehow, he’s let himself get talked into going along with this. Somehow, he isn’t completely terrified at the thought of his baby cousin steering a ship even though he has very distinct memories of changing her diaper and trying to convince her that glue wasn’t for eating. Somehow, he’s totally okay with all of this happening to him, because in the end, he can feel it in his blood that this, right here? This sense of warmth building in his chest as he looks around the bridge and sees family dotted at each console? It just feels right.

 

Peter’s only Human. Sarek’s never let him forget that.

 

Jo leans sideways against his chair, crossing her arms. “So I told a guy I’m meet him on Risa two days from now to discuss a job. And unless you have anything better planned,  _ Captain… _ ”

 

“You really got to tone down on the sass if we’re going to do this, Jo.” Peter snaps back at her, earning a quiet chuckle from almost everyone else in the room. Joanna scoffs, but there’s fondness sparkling in her light eyes even as she scowls at him.

 

They’ve broken the atmosphere. Peter knows his lines. “Connor, set course for Risa.”

 

There’s a moment’s pause. “Laid in.”

 

“Ready, Demo?”

 

She turns around to grin at him. “Ready!”

 

“Alright.” He takes a deep breath. This is it. “Warp factor six—”

 

“NO!”

 

Everybody’s heads whip around to stare at Jo.

 

“There’s umm…” she scratches the back of her head, flushing slightly. “There’s a bit of a rattle past warp four. I wouldn’t push it.”

 

“I got it,” Saavik sighs, getting up and leaving the bridge with a shake of her head.

 

David stands too, “I’ll go lend a hand. She likes having her tools brought to her.”

 

“Way to ruin the moment, Jo.” Tubey snarls as the pair disappear.

 

The little bit of tension Peter didn’t even know he was still holding lifts.

 

“Okay, let’s try this again. Demora, warp factor  _ four… _ ”

 

He can feel them all holding their breath.

 

“Punch it.”

  
  


*.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus we reach the end of the exposition, as fun as it was. The next installment in this series is heading your way fast, and is nothing but shenanigan ridden plot.


End file.
